Being a DST user for over 10 years, MyDST has seen changes over the years and there have been ups and downs. Last year they upgraded yet again adding extra wallet / shopping features and started calling it a “super app”. While it is generally a pleasant experience there are consistent annoying points related to ads and popups that make me call it a “stupor app”. While the issue is kind of small, it is a constant annoyance as it happens every time I open the app

My experience is only for the Android side of things so I can’t speak to how it works on iOS but I’d presume it should be similar and my usage of MyDST is mainly for

• management of Easi / Infinity home broadband (when I was Infinity user from 2020 to 2022)
• testing out digital wallet shopping options when was released

But all in all, MyDST would have to be the best app along with its full services it provides compared to the other telcos Imagine and Progresif

Basic features all 3 telcos app have

• Multiple accounts
  • Being able to link multiple accounts / numbers to a single login
• Biometric login
  • Being able to use your fingerprint is just so convenient
  • For MyDST, I haven’t tested any facial recognition but I’d presume it could work the same for phones without fingerprint readers
• Core management features
  • Quota usage
  • Bill payment
  • Top-ups
  • Purchase boosters/add-ons

Pros for MyDST

• Web app access without needing to download app https://mydst.dst.com.bn/
  • It has limited features (no full wallet and shopping features) but has the core functionality related to mobile and home broadband management
  • Imagine also has a web app at https://imagine.dtworks.ai/icare/user/login (certainly not something you’d likely remember the full URL of)
  • Progresif has this with slight caveats https://care.progresif.com
    • It tries to force you to download the app when accessing on mobile
    • But you can still bypass this by setting browser to request the desktop site

• Saved credit cards
  • Makes purchasing add-ons / recharges a simple process: pick what you want and use your saved card to page
  • Progresif has a similar option
  • Image does not have this: you need to fill in your credit card details every single time
• Digital wallet and includes payments/transfers with tarus
  • Progresif has this with Ding!
  • Imagine does not have digital wallet
• Shopping ability to purchase/order things by simply choosing from the menu
  • Progresif shopping works different and is more for replacing cash payments with QR payments
• Linking insurance to app
• Bill payments for certain shops and government departments. Bill payment also seems to have reminders which is nifty

Cons for MyDST

• Annoying ads on login
• Multiple notifications when having multiple accounts (seems fixed)
• Web app is not as full featured as mobile app
• Shopping option requires shops have a list/menu of their items. So may require extra work on business end
• Limited insurance, bill payment and government options

I’ll add a bit more detail into some of the cons below

Annoying Ads after login

It started with showing a dialog box telling me that I have successfully logged in, after I just logged in. I just logged in and things are loading to show my details, of course I know I just successfully logged in. This is just a useless notification that adds an unneeded step for a user to start using the app

And now after logging into the app on the phone, it always wants to show me their latest promotion / ad even if it is not applicable me or possibly expired ones. So each time I log in I have to dismiss these ad. The worse I’ve experience so far was 4 of these ads back to back shown below

Today, it is just a single ad telling me to “Choose DST”. Ironic how the fact that popping this up each time I log in makes me want to leave DST

Multiple notifications

I have several accounts registered on MyDST applications and when going to the notifications section it used to show me one message per account registered. This was something that happened before the super app and looking at recent notifications, it seems that this issue could have been solved as I don’t see multiple duplicates

The other cons

These are not so annoying but a bit more of limitations and possible design choices

• The web app is not as full featured as the mobile app. It has no super app features
  • No mobile wallet
  • No shopping
  • No linking of insurance
  • No bill/government service payment
• The super app features of insurance linking, bill payment and government service payment are limited to certain providers
  • None of these are applicable to me so your mileage may vary with these features
• For the shopping experience, it would be similar to online shopping of picking items from a cart and purchases
  • Good from the consumer perspective but could be hard for businesses to create a full itemized list of what they sell let alone keep it synced with their actual physical stock. I have no insight into the business owner perspective so I can’t speak to it.
  • It didn’t seem like there was an option to replace cash at the counter where you can order in physical location and use the app to make a payment for things that are not listed in the app. It could be possible with the regular transfer of funds feature that the digital wallet

Summary

• MyDST is generally a good app
  • Yes it has a bloat of features which I wish there was a stripped down version
  • DST’s quest for pushing ads in the face of existing customers is annoying and makes me like Progresif’s app more and it has practically the same feature set that is important to me
• Is it a super app? Not to me
• Is it a stupor app? Yes indeed while it keeps using ads to me
• Will I still use it?
  • Yes reluctantly (Easi is still the best value for my usage) and curse each time I see annoying ads or useless notifications/messages
  • So I guess they win for now
  • Hoping that Progresif / Imagine can save me (but so far based on my current ImagineGo experience, Progresif will need to be my hero)

Summary:

• It seems that DST has disabled automatic roaming and you need to contact them in order to enable it (Update April 2025 – I can confirm that it works. Normal roaming functionality now works so you can receive SMS notifications for free)
• This means if you go overseas your SIM will not even connect to any network and you would not even be able to receive SMS which could be an issue if you need 2FA/OTP messages

---

Last year I went to Malaysia and Singapore and noticed that my DST EASI was not getting any reception – it couldn’t connect to any provider despite my other SIM roaming without issue. Tried restarting the phone, enabling disable airplane mode but it didn’t help. It didn’t matter too much to me as my other SIM with had local data for the country in question.

But when in Singapore I think I needed a 2FA message and decided to just try purchasing an EASI data roaming add-on (even though I didn’t need the data). And to my surprise I was able to get connected to the network and start receiving SMSes

I presume this could be something DST has changed last year with the typical stories we hear about DST roaming charges where the end user does not actively enable data roaming and get charged. If you’re not familiar with this, a quick search shows these 2 such stories and with the first one being the weirdest of even buying a roaming plan, but it didn’t seem to get used but they still got charged

Dst ridiculous roaming charges. what to do?
byu/BruneiSecretNinja inBrunei

DST roaming fees
byu/anonymous2219 inBrunei

I called DST on 151 and they told me they would activate my account to auto enable roaming in the backend and that it doesn’t have any costs unless I make calls or send SMS. So I guess only time will tell whether this actually works.

On a related note it seems they have tried to help prevent data roaming bill shock by auto subscribing you to the lowest data add-on if you connect to the data network while overseas for MOBI customers https://dst.com.bn/mobi-roaming/ which is good if you know about it and I guess is a generally good move to prevent excessive charges.

It always seems that DST is the only carrier affected by this (or maybe just that they have such a high percentage of the mobile market that we only hear stories about them). But I’ve heard stories of people who are careful and still get charged, so it is always worrying and it was one of the questions posed on KristalFMs “Telcos Tell All: Inside Brunei’s Telecommunications Transformation” roundtable with the 3 telcos and UNN.

All telcos have their issue and it will just be a matter of finding what works best for you. I created “Pick my provider” to help me continue to decide which telco to use and in general my usage of EASI for over 10+ years has gone well (it is the most cost effective with 6GB data add-on and practically no SMS / call usage). I’ve used DST’s mobile broadband service before it was rebranded to Freedom and was also using their home broadband Inifinity and both were general good and I got what I wanted.

I migrated away from DST to Progresif and now Imagine of home broadband and I have all 3 of their apps installed so there will hopefully be more stories to come so stay tuned.